1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lipophobicating solution for electrophotographic plates for offset printing. More particularly, it relates to an improvement of a lipophobicating solution containing phytic acid as the chelating agent. This lipophobicating solution is applied to a plate material (referred to as master paper hereinafter) produced by coating the surface of a support (e.g., paper) with zinc oxide to form the lipophilic image areas by electrophotography on a plate for offset printing.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Among the lipophobicating solutions for electrophotographic plates for offset printing, the one based on phytic acid is being proposed in place of the one based on ferrocyan ion because the former causes no harm, permits the use of cyanin blue-based ink, and facilitates pH adjustment. However, it is known that a lipophobicating solution prepared simply by diluting phytic acid is not of practical value because it soon causes scumming to master paper (as shown in Comparative Experiment 1 given later). To eliminate this disadvantage, there have been proposed some practical lipophobicating solutions. An example is composed of phytic acid, a complex or salt of an aminocarboxylic acid, and a polyhydroxy-carboxylic acid (as shown in Conventional Example 1 given later). The other example is composed of a metal salt of phytic acid, a water-soluble fluoride, an alkali metal salt of dicarboxylic acid, and an alkali metal salt of phosphoric acid (as shown in Conventional Example 2 give later). It is said that these lipophobicating solutions provide master paper capable of thousands to ten thousands impressions without scumming.
The present inventors prepared lipophobicating solutions according to the formulations given in Conventional Examples and examined them for their effect. It was found that the master paper treated with them causes slight scumming even at the beginning of printing (as shown in Table 1 given later). These results suggest that the conventional lipophobicating solutions have a disadvantage in practical use.